Travelling through the time…

Roots of the scientific progressJewish and Christian Scholars

2013-03-01Comenius

Europe: past, present and future

,, It is an evil world. The fires of hatred and violence burn fiercely. Evil is powerful, the devil covers a darkened earth with his black wings. And soon the end of the world is expected. But mankind does not repent, the church struggles, and the preachers and poets warn and lament in vain ,,

Johan Huizinga

The beginning of our story takes us to the period of European history between ancient and modern times. The Middle Ages began with the Fall of Rome in the fifth century and ended with the Renaissance.

The Middle Ages are associated with many beliefs and practices that now seem out of date, such as chivalry, feudalism, the Inquisition, the belief that the sun revolves around the Earth, and a host of popular superstitions.

The early Middle Ages are even sometimes called the Dark Ages. The Middle Ages , however, especially in later years, also saw many notable human achievements. Among these were the building of modern nations, such as England and France; increasingly sophisticated and expanded trade; a great advancement of technique in philosophy and theology; some remarkable works of literature ( see The Canterbury Tales, The Divine Comedy); and the building of magnificent churches ( see Chartres and Notre Dame de Paris).

Far, far away in Italy in Roccasecca lived a family. This place was a way station for Roman legions and invading armies crossing the River Melfa , spanned by three ancient bridges here, of which remains persist. In 1225 , Thomas Aquinas was born at Roccasecca, in the castle of his father Landulf. His father belong to noble, a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. They lived in period which was called feudalism. It was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.

He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy was conceived in development or refutation of his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.

A primary goal of all philosophy is the proof of existence: the existence of God, the universe, and the self . Although St. Thomas "five proofs" are the most referenced, they are targeted toward a Catholic audience. In Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas provides a much lengthier and detailed proof that does not rely on divine revelation. God's existence is established based on the proposition that man's reason is capable of apprehending a cause from its effects.

His book , written in 1265–1274 and also known as the Summa Theologica or simply the Summa) is the best-known work. Although unfinished, the Summa is "one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature."It is intended as an instructional guide for moderate theologians, and a compendium of all of the main theological teachings of the Catholic Church. It presents the reasoning for almost all points of Christian theology in the West. The entire Summa can be summarized roughly in this chart:

Human beings are material, but the human person can survive the death of the body through continued existence of the soul, which persists. The human soul straddles the spiritual and material worlds, and is both a configured subsistent form as well as a configurer of matter into that of a living, bodily human. Because it is spiritual, the human soul does not depend on matter and may exist separately. Because the human being is a soul-matter composite, the body has a part in what it is to be human. Perfected human nature consists in the human dual nature, embodied and intellecting.

He liked to travel and one day he visited Florence in Italy. It was Giotto di Bondoneą’s home town. Giotto was an Italian painter and architect , great artist who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.

Giotto's depiction of the human face and emotion sets his work apart from that of his contemporaries. When the disgraced Joachim returns sadly to the hillside, the two young shepherds look sideways at each other. The soldier who drags a baby from its screaming mother in the Massacre of the Innocents does so with his head hunched into his shoulders and a look of shame on his face. The people on the road to Egypt gossip about Mary and Joseph as they go. Of Giotto's realism, the 19th century English critic John Ruskin said "He painted the Madonna and St. Joseph and the Christ, yes, by all means ... but essentially Mamma, Papa and Baby

In 1337 Giotto had become friends with Boccaccio and Sacchetti, who featured him in their stories. In The Divine Comedy, Dante acknowledged the greatness of his living contemporary through the words of a painter in Purgatorio (XI, 94–96): "Cimabue believed that he held the field/In painting, and now Giotto has the cry,/ So the fame of the former is obscure."

They spoke Latin as it was the language of the Roman Catholic Church, which dominated Western and Central Europe, and since the Church was virtually the only source of education, Latin was a common language for Medieval writings, even in some parts of Europe that were never Romanized. However, in Eastern Europe, the influence of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church made Greek and Old Church Slavonic the dominant written languages. All their friends went to Cathedral schools centers of advanced education, some of them ultimately evolving into medieval universities. Throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, they were complemented by the monastic schools. Some of these early cathedral schools, and more recent foundations, continued into modern times.

In their free time they liked to read The Song of Roland (French: La Chanson de Roland) is a heroic poem based on the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778, during the reign of Charlemagne. It is the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It exists in various manuscript versions which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries.

The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia) is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between c. 1308 and his death in 1321.

It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the afterlife is a culmination of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He wrote the Comedy in a language he called "Italian", in some sense an amalgamated literary language mostly based on the regional dialect of Tuscany, but with some elements of Latin and other regional dialects. He deliberately aimed to reach a readership throughout Italy including laymen, clergymen and other poets. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression.

They read St Albans Psalter, also known as the Albani Psalter or the Psalter of Christina of Markyate, which is an English illuminated manuscript, one of several psalters known to have been created at or for St Albans Abbey in the 12th century.[1] It is widely considered to be one of the most important examples of English Romanesque book production; it is of almost unprecedented lavishness of decoration, with over forty full-page miniatures, and contains a number of iconographic innovations that would endure throughout the Middle Ages. It also contains the earliest surviving example of French literature, the Chanson de St Alexis or Vie de St Alexis, and it was probably commissioned by an identifiable man and owned by an identifiable woman.

Originating in 12th-century France and lasting into the 16th century, Gothic architecture was known during the period as "French work" (Opus Francigenum), with the term Gothic first appearing during the latter part of the Renaissance. Its characteristic features include the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress.Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and churches of Europe. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities and to a less prominent extent, private dwellings.

They also liked to spend their free time in churches and monasteries which led to the development of stone architecture that elaborated vernacular Roman forms, from which the term Romanesque is derived. Romanesque art, especially metalwork, was at its most sophisticated in Mosan art, in which distinct artistic personalities including Nicholas of Verdun (d.1205).

13th-century illustration of a Jew (in pointed Jewish hat) and a Christian debating

During the 12th and 13th centuries, the ranks of the townsmen expanded greatly as existing towns grew and new population centers were founded. But throughout the Middle Ages the population of the towns probably never exceeded 10 per cent of the total population. Jews also spread across Europe during the period. Communities were established in Germany and England in the 11th and 12th centuries, but Spanish Jews, long settled in Spain under the Muslims, came under Christian rule and increasing pressure to convert to Christianity. Most Jews were confined to the cities, as they were not allowed to own land or be peasants.

They preferred to live in towns that were to a degree self-governing stimulated economic growth and created an environment for new types of trade associations. Commercial cities on the shores of the Baltic entered into agreements known as the Hanseatic League, and the Italian Maritime republics such as Venice, Genoa, and Pisa expanded their trade throughout the Mediterranean. Great trading fairs were established and flourished in northern France during the period, allowing Italian and German merchants to trade with each other as well as local merchants.

They often visited their friend called Moses Maimonides who was a preeminent medieval Spanish, Sephardic Jewish philosopher and one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba in 1135, and died in Egypt on December 12, 1204.He was a rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt.

Although his writings on Jewish law and ethics were met with acclaim and gratitude from most Jews, even as far off as Iraq and Yemen, and he rose to be the revered head of the Jewish community in Egypt, there were also vociferous critics of some of his writings, particularly in Spain. Nevertheless, he was posthumously acknowledged to be one of the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history, his copious work comprising a cornerstone of Jewish scholarship. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah still carries significant canonical authority as a codification of Talmudic law. In the Yeshiva world he is known as "haNesher haGadol" (the great eagle) in recognition of his outstanding status as a bona fide exponent of the Oral Torah.

He is widely respected in Spain and a statue of him was erected in Córdoba in the only synagogue in that city which escaped destruction; although no longer functioning as a Jewish house of worship, it is open to the public.

He is sometimes said to be a descendant of King David, although he never made such a claim Many legends are told about the burial of Maimonides. According to Jewish tradition, his bones were placed for a week in a small shrine where he used to study and to heal strangers. While some believe his bones never left Egypt, others believe that the permanent place of his burial was on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, where Tiberias is now sited. One legend has it that a band of Bedouins who were about to attack the funeral cortegé as it marched through the desert "hung their heads in shame" after realizing it was the funeral of the man who had attended themselves and their families for free, and instead formed a protective guard for the procession as it made its way to Palestine.

One day they met Marco Polo (c.1254 – January 8-9, 1324) who was an Italian merchant traveler from the Republic of Venice whose travels are recorded in Livres des merveilles du monde, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned the mercantile trade from his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, who traveled through Asia, and apparently met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa; Marco was imprisoned, and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married and had three children.

Marco Polo's travels may have had some influence on the development of European cartography, ultimately leading to the European voyages of exploration a century late.The 1453 Fra Mauro map was said by Giovanni Battista Ramusio to have been partially based on the one brought from Cathay by Marco Polo.

The first years of the 14th century were marked by famines, culminating in the Great Famine of 1315–1317.The causes of the Great Famine included the slow transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, which left the population vulnerable when bad weather caused crop failures. The climate change—which resulted in a declining average annual temperature for Europe during the 14th century—was accompanied by an economic downturn. These troubles were followed in 1347 by the Black Death, a disease that spread throughout Europe during the following three years. The death toll was probably about 35 million people in Europe, about one-third of the population.

In the early years of the 15th century, after a century of turmoil, ecclesiastical officials convened in Constance in 1414, and the following year the council deposed one of the rival popes, leaving only two claimants. Further depositions followed, and in November 1417 the council elected Martin V (pope 1417–1431) as pope. The papacy refined the concept of transubstantiation further in the Late Middle Ages, stating that the clergy alone was allowed to partake of the wine in the Eucharist. This further distanced the secular laity from the clergy. The laity continued the practices of pilgrimages, veneration of relics, and belief in the power of the Devil. Mystics such as Meister Eckhart or Thomas à Kempis wrote works that taught the laity to focus on their inner spiritual life, which laid the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation. Besides mysticism, belief in witches and witchcraft became widespread, and by the late 15th century the Church had begun to lend credence to populist fears of witchcraft by its condemnation of witches in 1484 and the publication in 1486 of the Malleus Maleficarum, the most popular handbook for witch-hunters.

To finish our story we have to say that medieval period is frequently caricatured as a "time of ignorance and superstition" that placed "the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity.

"This is a legacy from both the Renaissance and Enlightenment, when scholars negatively contrasted their intellectual cultures with those of the medieval period. Renaissance scholars saw the Middle Ages as a period of decline from the high culture and civilization of the Classical world; Enlightenment scholars saw reason as superior to faith, and thus viewed the Middle Ages as a time of ignorance and superstition.

Others argue that reason was generally held in high regard during the Middle Ages. Science historian Edward Grant writes, "If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed [in the 18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities".

Also, contrary to common belief, David Lindberg writes, "the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the coercive power of the church and would have regarded himself as free (particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation wherever they led".